Green: Rising tide of 'Nones' affects churches

Independence Day is around the corner. For many, an integral part of celebrating our country’s birth includes affirming our religious liberties. Faith is deeply woven into our cultural fabric, so examining the role of religion in America is always worthwhile.

Last year the Pew Research Center Forum on Religion & Public Life issued the results of a nationwide survey, a study performed every five years.

Thorough and objective in its approach, the Pew Center has provided this snapshot of our faith landscape for decades, enabling developments to be tracked over the long-term.

With any survey, findings are open to interpretation and skepticism. Even so, for many religious leaders this most recent study had the effect of stepping into a cold shower of reality.

In a nutshell, the survey found Americans as a whole are becoming less religious, not affiliating themselves with any religious group or particular belief. One-fifth of us — and a whopping third of adults under the age of 30 — are religiously unaffiliated; the highest percentages ever in Pew polling.

These vast numbers of folks have been dubbed the “Nones.” They attend religious services less frequently than the public at large, and attach less weight to the importance of religion in their lives.

In the last five years, Nones have increased from just over 15 percent to almost 20 percent of all U.S. adults. They include more than 13 million Atheists and Agnostics — almost 6 percent of the U.S. public — as well as nearly 14 percent, or 33 million people with no religious affiliation.

At the same time, the survey found many of the Nones still consider themselves religious or spiritual in some way. Most believe churches benefit society by strengthening community bonds and helping the poor.

The survey found 68 percent claim to believe in God, although how they define God is ambiguous. More than a third — 37 percent — classify themselves as “spiritual but not religious,” and one in five say they pray daily.

In terms of religious beliefs and practices, Nones are a diverse group, and far from uniformly secular. One-third of them still say religion is at least somewhat important in their lives.

With few exceptions, though, Nones aren’t looking for a religion that would be right for them. They think organized religion is overly concerned with money and power, too focused on rules and too involved in politics. Only 28 percent of Nones say that belonging to an organized group is very important to them, compared with 49 percent of all adults.

The growth of the Nones is largely driven by generational replacement: the gradual decline in the number of older generations by newer ones.

Hardest hit by this are mainline, theologically liberal or moderate Protestant denominations. Roman Catholics have held steady, but largely due to the increase in our Catholic-leaning Latino population.

More traditionally conservative groups such as Southern Baptists have also seen a decline — as have independent evangelical churches — mostly because those congregations tend to have a higher turnover rate.

Evangelicals often view church membership in retail terms, shopping and hopping between congregations. This results in more of a reshuffling of the deck between churches than any steady growth in numbers nationwide.

The Pew report attempts to explain the root causes in the rise of the religiously unaffiliated.

Theories run the gamut from a backlash against the entanglement of religion and politics, to a global relationship between economic development and secularization. That is, the more people see themselves as citizens of the world — connected economically and environmentally and socially — religious distinctions matter less.

Or, religious belief itself matters less. The survey shows the percentage of Americans who never doubt the existence of God has fallen modestly but noticeably over the past 25 years. In 1987, 88 percent of adults said they never doubt the God’s existence. By 2012, this figure was down to 80 percent.

Also, the percentage of Americans who say the Bible should be taken literally has fallen in Gallup polls from an average of about 38 percent in the late 1970s and early 1980s to an average of 31 percent today.

So, Nones are often disenchanted or bored with traditional forms of religion, or beliefs they feel don’t have any relevance to a rational yet ethical life. They can’t stand dogma that punishes some folks while rewarding others.

Nones comprise a broad swath of demographic groups. It’s a growing trend among women. It doesn’t matter whether or not you have a college degree. It’s true if you earn more than $75,000 or more per year or less than $30,000. And it cuts across all major regions of the country.

However, when it comes to race, the change is concentrated in one group: whites. One-fifth of whites now describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated, while the share of African-Americans and Latinos hasn’t changed by any significant margin.

You can like or loathe what the Pew Forum tells us. Either way, there’s no denying our growing diversity and declining religious affiliation. We work alongside Nones, count them as family, and they live next door.

Our culture has never been static, and on the Fourth of July we should remember our independence wasn’t won by people who chose to stand still. They sparked a revolution.

Our religious terrain appears to be undergoing a transformation as well.

David Green is minister of the Amarillo Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. His website is davidgreenfaith.com.

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Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear. Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

A recent book by sociologist Robert Putnam, "Amazing Grace: How religion Unites and Divides Us", discusses religious trends in America and documents the growing number of unchurched Americans. Another more recent book "How the West Really Lost God : The Secularization of America", by Mary Everstadt also speaks to this issue. I haven't read the latter book, just an interview with the author and some reviews but the thesis is that the breakdown of the nuclear family is the cause of declining church involvement. National Public Radio did a feature story available on the web titled, "Losing Our religion; The Growth of the Nones."

Will the nones support and become involved in other social institutions? Will they support secular organizations providing social services now provided by churches? Will they become involved with secular organizations providing the kinds of children's moral education and socialization currently provided by churches ?

My opinion is that churches provide a valuable function in our society and I hope they can change and adapt and find ways to become attractive and relevant to the nones.

That is what I understand the Pew Report as well as sociologist Robert Putnam to be saying. Its not that people are less spiritual or less apt to believe in a higher power, they are just less inclined to become involved in institutional religion.

The problem with that is that institutional religion serves us in many important ways from educating and socializing or children, providing social service programs, advocating for justice, nurturing and supporting its member in crises etc.

You don't have to belong to a certain religion to have faith in God, actually your better off staying away from the churches teachings. That's what Jesus taught, but his teachings have been twisted so bad not even the churches know what truth is.

According to Harvard professor Robert Putnam, who writes about religion, this young generation has been distancing itself from community institutions and from institutions in general.

"They're the same people who are also not joining the Elks Club or the Rotary Club," Putnam tells Greene. "I don't mean to be casting that as a critique of them, but this same younger generation is much less involved in many of the main institutions of our society than previous younger generations were."